


The Five Little Deaths

by dozmuffinxc



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Gen, Missing Scene, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19338745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dozmuffinxc/pseuds/dozmuffinxc
Summary: Barry contracts an ancient and lethal disease that strips its victims of their five senses before ultimately killing them.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Youkaineko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Youkaineko/gifts).



The first time that Barry notices something wrong is at breakfast. The whole ‘Blaster crew is crowded around one tiny kitchen table in varying states of wakefulness, and Taako and Lup are doling out portions like miniature, spatula-wielding tornadoes. It’s been almost two decades of travel: there’s no point asking what everyone wants, because they could each recite one another’s food orders by heart.

Merle prefers whole grain toast with a big smear of peanut butter on the side. He drinks over-steeped black tea and he relishes in making Taako gag as he slowly drips three heaping teaspoons of honey into the steaming mug.

Magnus goes all out: eggs, bacon, toast, sliced tomatoes, sausage, and pancakes. He hates coffee, but he chugs a huge glass of ice water before complimenting the chefs and stacking his plate neatly in the sink.

Davenport and Lucretia somehow manage to subsist on bowls of cold cereal and, if they’re feeling daring, some sliced fruit. Lup constantly grumbles about what a waste it is having a pair of _fuckin’ baller chefs_ on the crew if they’re going to eat shit like that, but they just smile and sip their coffee (black, one cream for Lucretia).

The twins eat as they cook. At first, the other crew members thought it was odd that they never sat down at the table with everyone else, but after a while, it became obvious that they are used to eating on the go, and some habits are hard to break.

And Barry? Well, he told the twins on their first day onboard to “surprise him,” and he’s regretted it ever since, so he isn’t phased when Lup plops a huge and remarkably colorful omelet that looks far too exciting for his bland palate in front of him with a chipper “Bon Appetit” before whirling back over to the counter to check something on the stove.

He’s halfway through his breakfast when he hears her gasp.

“Oh, _shit_. Barry, I’m so sorry,” she yelps, her spatula hovering over a pan of hashbrowns as she gapes at him in alarm. “I gave you Taako’s omelet by accident. I stuffed it with habanero peppers, and I know how much you hate th—.”

She pauses, her eyes on his plate. Half of the omelet is already gone.

“You… ate… it?”

Barry blinks in surprise. He’s never done well with spicy foods – once, Taako added a dollop of hot sauce to their dinner gumbo and Barry had spent the next hour nursing a cold glass of milk and dabbing at his watering eyes. Staring at the cooling remains of his breakfast, he can see the large chunks of pepper poking out of the cheesy filling, and he doesn’t know what to say.

There’s a moment of silence as the rest of the table waits for a reaction. Barry can feel his cheeks turning scarlet from the attention. It’s Taako who comes to the rescue.

“Good for you, Bluejeans,” he says with a lazy nod. “’Bout time you broadened your culinary horizons.”

Barry smiles weakly and the crew goes back to minding their own food. Barry makes a point of finishing the rest of the omelet, but as he takes his plate to the sink before heading off to the lab, he has a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that something isn’t quite right.


	2. Chapter 2

Barry is in his lab the next day running tests on a series of samples that he’s collected from various spots on this new planet. It’s a small one, perhaps 300 miles in circumference, and the humanoid inhabitants who occupy it are obsessed with health. His preliminary research found evidence of a plague that nearly wiped out the entire population less than three generations ago, and the natives have been working hard to rebuild in the years since. There’s a temple in the capitol city dedicated to a multi-faced deity who is supposed to have delivered them from the plague, and Barry was able to collect several vials of water from one of the “holy” fountains outside the shrine. Worshippers drink from them daily, and Barry has a theory that the Light of Creation is being held in the temple, its arcane influence seeping into the water.

The trouble is, Barry is so _tired_. As he places each new slide under his microscope, it becomes harder and harder to focus, the images blurring before him until he’s only seeing vague shapes and even vaguer colors. Leaning back in his chair with a jaw-splitting yawn, he thinks it wouldn’t be so bad to take a quick nap. His head is in his arms, propped up on a stack of papers at the edge of his desk, before the thought has a chance to leave his mind.

He wakes up to hands on his shoulders, shaking him hard. 

“Fuck, _fuck_ , Barry, wake _up_!”

The figure standing over him is just a blur, but it’s Lup’s voice, and she sounds frightened. As Barry scrabbles to find his glasses, he hears her cast a spell for extinguishing flames followed immediately by a string of colorful curses that would make even Merle blush.

Vision restored, Barry turns in his chair to find Lup standing over the smoldering remains of one of his lab tables. It’s a charred mess, and at the center of the wreckage is a Bunsen burner that Barry just barely remembers lighting. The contents of the flask that he had set to simmer have evaporated, and the glass itself is blackened and cracked right down the middle.

“What the _hell_ , Bluejeans?” Lup seethes, whipping around to face him with a look that would, under normal circumstances, have reduced him to a stammering mess and at present almost unmans him altogether.

“I’m s-s-so sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I… fell asleep, and… I…”

“And you didn’t smell the smoke from your little bonfire? _Shit_ , Barry, you could’ve burned down the whole ship!”

Barry hears footsteps running towards the lab as all the color drains from his face, the full implication of what could have happened crashing into him at once. He rises from his chair on shaky legs as the rest of the crew piles into the room, his hands splayed in supplication.

“I didn’t… there was no… I couldn’t…!”

He takes a step towards Lup and the mess of his lab and then the world goes black.


	3. Chapter 3

Barry wakes, not on the hard floor of his lab, but in his own bed. He has no idea how he got there, but as his eyes adjust to the light, he sees Merle standing over him with his hands full of bandages.

“Slow down there, chief,” Merle says as Barry attempts to pull himself up. “You hit your head pretty hard going down. Let me just finish up with these…”

Barry tries to stay still as Merle tucks the ends of the bandage he’s holding into the wrap he’s made around Barry’s forehead, but it’s no easy feat when he knows there are five other people watching who are making him incredibly self-conscious. The rest of the Starblaster crew has crowded into his room, and although they are attempting to give Merle space to work, these are small quarters. Magnus looks particularly uncomfortable squashed up against the far wall, but he hardly seems to notice; his eyes are larger than usual with what Barry can easily read to be apprehension, and he’s shifting slightly from foot to foot much to Lucretia’s – who is closest to him, pressed almost against his side – chagrin.

“All done, kid,” Merle says, patting him lightly on the head. His eyes narrow slightly, and instead of removing his hand, he presses it gently against Barry’s forehead and lets out a long, low whistle. “You’re burning up. Are you sure you haven’t come down with something?”

“N-n-no, I don’t… I don’t think so,” Barry stutters, appalled at the very idea. “I’m fine, just…” 

Barry has always known that he has the worst luck of any human in the planar systems. This is confirmed as his speech is cut off abruptly by a wave of nausea that hits him in the gut with all the force of a runaway train, and it’s only thanks to Merle’s quick thinking that he’s able to discharge the contents of his stomach into the trash bin that has miraculously appeared in his lap rather than all over his bed clothes.

“You were saying?” Merle quips. 

The rest of the crew is shooed out of the room, and the next few hours find Barry being poked and prodded by Merle who insists on running a full diagnostic. At the end of it, Merle emerges from the sleeping quarters looking grim.

“Whatever it is,” he reports to an anxious Davenport, “it’s playing havoc on his immune system. It’s nothing I’ve ever seen before, Cap, and it doesn’t look to be getting any better. He tells me he’s been having trouble tasting and smelling these last few days which is… weird, to say the least. I’ll keep an eye on him, but I have a feeling we’re going to need to do some old-fashioned research on this one.”

Davenport nods and claps a grateful hand on Merle’s shoulder. 

“I’ll send Lucretia to the archives at the temple. I think the priestesses there will give her access to their scrolls as long as she keeps quiet about why she’s there. The locals are… sensitive… when it comes to illness, and I don’t know how they’ll react to finding out that one of ours is sick.”

Both men go off to see to their respective duties leaving Barry, pale and sweating in his bed, to stare after them with a look of barely concealed alarm.


	4. Chapter 4

Barry does his best to discourage the crew from visiting him in his room over the following days. No matter what Merle says, they can’t be _sure_ what he has isn’t contagious, and Barry – well, he isn’t willing to take a chance with the lives of his friends. He sets up magical wards in case whatever this is turns out to be arcane in nature, and for the first time since he took up residence aboard the Starblaster, Barry locks his door.

He spends his first night alone, curled up on his bed with his knees tucked against his chest, trying very hard not to cry. He may not be a healer, but he knows that losing his sense of smell and taste isn’t good. This isn’t some common cold: it’s stripping away his senses, and that means it’s probably cerebral. It’s pointless to worry, but he can’t help it: he’s losing control of his mind, and without his mind, he’s nothing. What if this thing, whatever it is, is permanent? At best, he’ll become a burden to his crewmates; at worst, he’ll be a liability. 

Sometime around midnight, there’s a knock on the door. Barry startles, untangling himself from his sheets and fumbling for his glasses. Maybe if he doesn’t speak, whoever it is will just go away…

“Bar?” Magnus’ voice resonates through the metal door even though Barry can tell he’s trying to be quiet. “Barry? Hey, man, how you doin’ in there? You didn’t come out for dinner and you’ve been real quiet. Wanna let me in?”

Barry clears his throat and pitches his voice just a little bit lower than usual to conceal the fact that he’s been crying.

“I’m fine, Magnus. Don’t worry about me. I’m good.”

There’s almost a full minute of heavy silence during which Barry thinks Magnus must have gone to bed. He doesn’t have time to decide whether he feels relieved or disappointed before Magnus’ voice barks through the keyhole again.

“Bull shit.”

“P-pardon??”

“I call bull shit,” Magnus says, and the sound of something heavy sliding down the door followed by a meaty _whump_ tells Barry that the other man has flopped down on the floor on the other side of the partition. “I know you, Barry Bluejeans; you have to understand everything or it drives you crazy. There’s no way you’re cool not knowing what this alien bug is, and if you don’t want to admit it, that’s fine, but I’m not going to leave you alone to deal with this all by yourself.”

Barry feels a prickling behind his eyes at this declaration, and he’s suddenly very glad that Magnus can’t see him even though he has never wanted a hug so desperately in his life. He slides off his bed and pads across the room in his socks, easing himself onto the floor at the foot of the door and letting out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Thanks, Magnus,” he says, wrapping his arms around his legs and resting his chin on his knees.

“Of course,” Magnus replies, his voice close enough that, if Barry closes his eyes, he can picture him at his side. “You’d do the same for me.”

There is a barefaced certainty in Magnus’ tone that Barry isn’t completely sure he’s earned but that he finds incredibly flattering, and despite the pounding in his head and the tightness in his chest, he feels better than he has all day.


	5. Chapter 5

“I have good news and I have bad news.”

They are all gathered in the common room, Lucretia perched on the edge of her chair facing the rest of the crew while they wait to hear her report from the temple library. Barry insisted on being there despite the fact that he’s spent the last two days practically living in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet and, for the time being, grateful that his senses of taste and smell aren’t working. Magnus is seated next to him with a bag in case he needs it, but for the time being, Barry actually feels pretty good, all things considered.

“The priestesses have an incredibly extensive reference section on all things related to diseases,” Lucretia says. “I imagine they don’t want to take any risks after their experience with the plague, but it made the going slow with so much material to wade through.”

She pauses and flashes Barry a quick, apologetic glance. He attempts to smile back, but he’s so nervous that all he manages is a brief lip twitch.

“I cross-checked all of Barry’s symptoms,” she continues, “and they all seem to add up to a rare virus that hasn’t been seen on this planet in almost 500 years. There’s a name for it in the common tongue, but it basically translates to… er… the Five Little Deaths, so named because it robs the infected person of their five senses before… that is, before it… kills them. Usually within a fortnight.”

The room is silent while they each take this in.

“That sounds… bad…” Magnus offers, his eyes flicking back and forth between Lucretia and Barry, “but you found the cure, right?”

Lucretia bites her lip.

“Well, yes,” she says, staring straight at Davenport who has been watching this whole exchange with an inscrutable expression. “There’s a potion. It sounds relatively simple to brew, but it’s only effective when it’s been exposed to the Heart of the Goddess – that is…”

“The Light of Creation,” Davenport finishes for her, “which is currently being kept under guard in the temple.”

Lucretia nods.

“No big deal then,” Taako says, hopping from his stool where he’s been listening with a practiced expression of boredom that no one is actually buying. “We go to the temple, tell those dorks to give us the Light, and if they won’t hand it over, we take it. Easy peasy. Barry’s cured, and we get our resident nerd back.”

Davenport sighs as he steps towards the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back in a stance they all recognize to mean that their Captain is speaking now.

“We can’t just take the Light. It’s too dangerous: the temple priestesses are protective of what they assume – rightfully, I believe – to be the saving grace of their people, and they aren’t going to give it up without a fight. We have to do what we’ve always done: we negotiate. They may be reasonable, especially if we explain that one of our crew is sick. If they refuse, we can reassess our options, but I won’t just go in guns-blazing.” 

He shoots a stern look at Taako and, by extension, Lup, but the latter is already on her feet, arms crossed over her chest and a thunderous look in her bright eyes.

“That’s bull and you know it, Cap. Full respect, but Barry looks like he could keel over at any minute. Are you seriously suggesting we sit back and do nothing while we wait for some dipshit clerics – sorry, Merle – to decide it’s worth stirring their lily-white asses for some alien they’ve never met?”

The room erupts into a sea of voices as everyone attempts to interject their opinion into what quickly becomes less of a conversation and more of a shouting match. Meanwhile, Barry’s head swims with the weight of what he’s just heard, and this well-meaning cacophony is doing nothing to help the pounding headache that’s threatening to split his skull in two.

“ _Stop_!”

It takes a moment for everyone to realize where the command came from, but as the crew settles down, they notice Barry shuddering in his seat, his knuckles white where they clench the arms of his chair.

“Stop, please,” he says, softer now. “This is st-st-stupid. Just let me die. I’ll be back after the cycle ends, right? It’s n-not worth risking everyone else’s safety to steal the L-l-light before you’ve had a chance to figure out all of the details. Please stop arguing. Just… l-leave me alone for a few days and then you’ll have all the time you need to figure out how to get the Light.”

His friends gape at him; even Taako has been rendered speechless, which is, Barry thinks to himself darkly, rather an impressive feat. If he is going to die, at least it won’t have been for nothing.

It’s Lup who breaks the stunned silence a few seconds later with a low whistle of appreciation.

“Fuck,” she says, her voice pitched lower than usual. “That’s _dark_ , Barold. Shit.”

“Yeah,” Taako agrees. “Mad respect.”

“But seriously,” Lup continues, “you don’t actually think we’re just going to sit back and watch you kick the bucket, do you?”

“B-b-but,” Barry stutters, taken aback by the incredulity in her tone and the steel in her gaze, “C-captain Davenport s-s-said…”

Davenport walks across the room to place a gentle hand on Barry’s arm.

“What I said is that I won’t let us go in without a plan. Obviously, we’re going to do everything we can to get the Light.”

“Hells yeah,” Magnus shouts, nearly tipping Barry over with the force of his hug. “We’ll have you right as rain in no time, my man.”

The other crew members chime in their assent, but Barry can’t help noticing the significant look that Davenport exchanges with Lucretia or the worried frown that Merle is doing a terrible job of hiding behind his bushy beard. Still, he’s only been sick for a few days; it’s not too late, and surely the priestesses won’t object to helping a dying man, right?


	6. Chapter 6

Barry’s eyes open on a world filled with smoke. He fights his way out from under the covers and reaches for his glasses which are, miraculously, still on the bedside table. In the distance, he hears a high-pitched, keening sound that makes his blood run cold. He stumbles towards the place where his door should be, and as he trips out into the hallway, the sound becomes louder and more primal. 

He emerges into the common room gasping for breath, his eyes watering so badly that he bumps right into a large mass in the middle of the floor. The smoke and floating debris suddenly clear, and Barry is barely able to suppress a scream. The mass is Magnus – was Magnus – his body sprawled out on the blood-stained carpet. Barry struggles to focus on the fact that there’s a gaping hole where Magnus’ chest should be, but he can’t, he just can’t.

Stepping carefully over the body of his fallen friend, Barry stares around at the wreckage of the common room where it appears some desperate battle has just taken place. There is a broken wand at his feet, and the smoldering remains of Merle’s Extreme Teen Bible are scattered across the floor; a few feet away, half of a torso dressed in red robes leans against a wall, the fingers of its blackened hand clutched claw-like around a journal that he recognizes as Lucretia’s.

The only signs of life are two figures huddled against the huge, floor-to-ceiling window on the opposite side of the room. Barry runs to them as huge, inky black pillars of power crash to the earth outside of the ship, and as he gets close, a face that could be Lup’s but could just as easily be Taako’s for all it’s covered in ash and blood stares up at him.

“They’re all dead,” Lup-Taako whispers. “Everyone. And it’s all your fault. Why did you do it Barry? Why? We trusted you!”

Barry reels backwards as the two figures crumble to dust before his eyes.

“I can fix this,” he mutters, and he knows that if he can just get the Starblaster off the ground, he can fly them to safety. He’s watched Davenport do it a million times. It’s not too late, it’s not too late, it can’t be too late.

He runs down the corridor towards the cockpit, the sound of glass shattering behind him giving him an extra burst of speed, but no matter how hard or how fast he runs, the door to the control room remains just as far away as it was when he started. Meanwhile, the floor beneath him has become a viscous mass that is slowly pulling him down until his legs, his hips, his chest have been consumed.

It can’t end like this, it can’t end like this, it can’t—

“ _Barry_!”

Barry’s eyes fly open to find a very worried (and very much alive) Lup peering down at him from her seat next to his bed. She’s clutching a book in one hand, the other hovering just over his shoulder where she must have been shaking him awake. Barry gulps huge mouthfuls of blessedly-smoke-free air and pulls himself up in bed, hiding his face in his hands so that she can’t see the tears pooling in his eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says, her voice soft as she scoots over onto the edge of the bed and hands him a tissue. “You had a nightmare. Whatever it was, it isn’t real.”

Barry swallows a sob and takes one last, ragged breath before he forces himself to meet her eyes.

“I know. Thank you. I’m sorry if I—if I startled you.”

Lup rolls her eyes, but she looks relieved.

“You don’t have to apologize for having a dream, Barold. Shit, if I apologized every time I woke Taako up because I’d had a nightmare, I would… well.”

She catches herself, obviously embarrassed. 

“Anyway, the point is, you’re good. I was just about to head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. You want anything?”

Barry shakes his head and Lup starts to rise from the bed. 

“Thank you,” he says a bit quieter than he had intended. “F-for sitting with me. You didn’t have to do that.”

Lup smiles, and despite the fever that already has him coated in a thin sheen of sweat, a rush of warmth wells up in Barry’s chest and sets him blushing.

“That’s what friends are for,” she says as she reaches out to squeeze his arm.

Lup is already halfway down the hallway before Barry realizes that his arm barely registered the touch of her fingers. He pinches the pale flesh, and there’s hardly a twinge of pain.


	7. Chapter 7

By the next morning, Barry has lost his sense of touch completely. Merle examines him, and although he doesn’t say so, Barry can tell by the strain around his eyes that he’s alarmed at how quickly the virus is progressing. Lucretia said that it usually takes a fortnight for all of the symptoms to manifest, but it’s been less than a week since his smell went, and he’s growing weaker by the day. The rest of the crew remains optimistic in his presence, but it’s not hard to catch the anxious looks they exchange when they think he isn’t looking. 

To Barry’s chagrin, losing the ability to feel external stimuli has not dulled his internal pain. He wakes one morning to an excruciating headache, worse than any migraine he’s ever experienced; the dim lights from the hallway are blinding, and the faint smell of something being fried in the kitchen sends him staggering towards the bathroom. He makes it about three steps before doubling over and collapsing to the floor. Taako finds him in the middle of a full-blown seizure, back rigid as the rest of his body thrashes violently against the hard metal. Barry comes to with his head in Taako’s lap, a cool cloth that he can’t feel dripping water into his eyes, and Lup in the doorway, her face unnaturally pale and her hands in fists at her side.

Barry doesn’t see much of the twins after this episode. He assumes they’re disgusted by his condition, and honestly, he doesn’t blame them. He’s a mess, and if he didn’t need help simply sitting up in bed, he would banish everyone completely so that he doesn’t have to see their looks of mingled compassion and revulsion. He grows weaker by the day until the morning when he wakes up with a painfully full bladder and realizes that he can’t make it to the bathroom on his own. He leans heavily against his bedframe, squeezing his eyes shut and willing his legs to _move, dammit_ , before he finally calls for Magnus. Barry is horrified, and despite Magnus’ quiet understanding and assurances that he doesn’t mind, he can barely look his friend in the eye to thank him.

The crew does their best to maintain a façade of normalcy, but it becomes increasingly difficult as negotiations with the temple quickly go downhill. Lucretia’s research in the libraries did not go unnoticed, and as soon as the priestesses learn that one of the strange visitors from another world has contracted an ancient and lethal disease, they quarantine the entire ship. No one is allowed in or out of the ‘Blaster, and Davenport is forced to attempt negotiations via loudspeaker. Merle tries to convince the head priestess that Barry isn’t contagious and that his only hope for a cure is the Light, but the legacy of the plague that almost eradicated their little planet is too strong, and it seems Barry is nothing more to their eyes than a sacrificial lamb in their ongoing quest for planetary salubrity.

The last thing Barry hears before his sense of sound disappears completely is the staccato thud of Magnus’ fist connecting repeatedly with the wall outside his bedroom door and the usually stoic Davenport spitting a slew of curses that have never been heard in this planar system before. Tucked up in his bed with three extra blankets to ward off the chill that he can’t seem to shake, Barry listens to his friends raging on the other side of the door and smiles. 

_At least I’ll die knowing I’ve been loved_ , he thinks. _That’s something._


	8. Chapter 8

Barry knows the day he is going to die.

It’s exactly nine days and eighteen hours after his initial diagnosis; he has been confined to his bed for the last two of those days, and his sight is finally failing. Even if he squeezed his eyes shut, though, he would know the end was close. Every breath he takes is a struggle, he can’t move his arms and legs, and his heart is beating far too fast to sustain him for long. He knows it’s only a matter of an hour or two before his body gives out, and… he’s okay with that.

At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself. As he lies in his bed, staring up at the ceiling and attempting to tamp down the panic that comes and goes in vast, rolling waves, he reminds himself that he’ll be back at the start of the next cycle. This will all be just a terrible dream that he’ll gladly put behind him. 

Except he knows that the crew is no closer to acquiring the Light than they were before he became ill – farther, perhaps, because the priestesses have heightened security on their temple and the Starblaster is under constant military surveillance. Barry can’t hear his friends’ anxious murmurs any more, but he can see the strain in their eyes when they come in to sit with him, and he can’t help feeling guilty because if he could just get up, just throw off this stupid virus, he could _help_ them. As it is, the impending darkness is only a few weeks away, and it is killing him (literally as well as figuratively, he supposes) to be a helpless bystander to what might be their last stand against the Hunger.

This is what frightens him most in his final moments: not his own death, but the possibility that his friends – his family – may not be far behind him. 

Magnus slips into the room and takes the long way around the foot of the bed so that Barry sees him coming. There are dark smudges under his eyes and his smile, while still in place, looks like it’s been pasted on with watered-down adhesive. Barry blinks his greeting, and Magnus uses the sign language they picked up seven cycles ago to ask whether he needs anything.

 _No_ , Barry blinks. Then, after a pause: _Stay_?

Magnus has just adjusted the pillows to accommodate his bulk when Barry’s heart begins to stutter. He can’t feel it, but his body must be seizing because suddenly the world is sideways, the edges of his vision are going fuzzy, and Magnus is reaching towards him and mouthing words that Barry can’t make out. There’s a brief blur of yellow out of the corner of his eye before the world goes black and his heart stops beating all together.

…until it starts again, and the world rushes back in on him with startling clarity. Barry opens his eyes to a riot of color that coalesces into the form of Lup bending over him, her face so close to his that he wonders, deliriously, whether she’s kissed him back to life like something out of a fairytale. He breathes in the smell of singed hair and sweat, and as he struggles to make sense of what he’s seeing, he realizes that Lup isn’t alone: Taako is with her, both of them covered in ash and wearing identical smiles that show all of their teeth.

“Welcome back,” Lup says as Barry stares up at her in wonder.

“H-h-how?” he rasps, his voice rough from disuse.

“There may have been a break-in at the temple,” Taako says, leaning against the bedframe with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Somebody set fire to the altar,” Lup adds, tossing a singed curl over her shoulder, “and when the priestesses were busy saving their relics…”

“…someone slipped past the guards and grabbed the Light,” Taako finishes.

They both laugh at the look of mingled incredulity and amazement on Barry’s face. 

“I don’t understand,” Barry stammers. “D-D-Davenport said no one was to go after the Light until we had more intel. T-t-too dangerous.”

“Lucky for you,” Lup replies, winking at her brother, “’Danger’ is our middle name. Sure, Cap was pretty mad when he caught us sneaking back onto the ship, but he changed his tune when he saw that we had the Light.”

“Thank you,” Barry whispers, tears in his eyes that he doesn’t bother trying to wipe away. The Twins shrug off his gratitude, but there’s a faint blush beneath their freckles as they help him out of bed and lead him, an elf on either side, towards the door.

Beneath their feet, the hum of the bond engine rumbles to life. Outside the window, trees give way to open sky and Barry feels every jolt and shudder of the ship as it fights to break through the atmosphere. He hears whoops of celebration from the hall beyond his bedroom door as the rest of the crew celebrates their departure, and as Barry goes to join them, a flood of warmth that has nothing to do with fever fills his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was commissioned by Youkaineko who really wanted a Barry sickfic with some Blupjeans and some good Magnus content thrown in for good measure. The original goal was 2500 words, and... well, I may have gotten a little carried away.


End file.
